The most deplorable thing unis copied from big business, aside from vice-chancellor pay

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Successive federal governments have engineered a kind of backdoor privatisation of our universities. It’s a race to the bottom.

If it wasn’t for their sterling success in fattening their own salaries, I’d be tempted to feel sorry for the nation’s vice chancellors. They’ve been screwed around for years by federal governments of both colours, and the mess they’re in – some of which they try to cover up – gets ever deeper.

The feds have sought to greatly increase the proportion of school-leavers going on to university, but limit the cost to their own budget. They’ve done this partly by requiring students to cover some of the cost of providing their degrees themselves, but mainly by encouraging the unis to attract overseas students and charge them full freight.

No one understands better than the Albanese government that the fees charged for different degrees should be based on the graduate’s likely lifetime earnings. But characteristically, it is hastening at a snail’s pace, hoping to fix it one day.Many problems have arisen from the universities’ ever-growing dependence on raising revenue from overseas students.

It’s idle for the universities to deny that the surge has contributed to the shortage of rental accommodation. And it’s understandable for the government to want to ease the pressure on rents. But the surge is likely to be temporary and the various measures the feds have taken to correct their own mistakes are likely to fix the problem without any need to resort to caps. Sometimes pollies wield big sticks without intending to use them.

 

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